Spring Tour of Homes has new schedule; Currie home in Danburg will be featured

Home of Carole and Walter Currie - DanburgThe Washington-Wilkes Spring Tour of Homes 2007 will have a different schedule this year from years past.
Both the Day Tour and the Candlelight Tour will be held on Saturday. There will be no tours on Friday or Sunday.
The tours will be held on Saturday, March 31, with the Day Tour hours being 10 a.m. until 5 p.m.; and the Candlelight Tour, 6-9 p.m.
The homes on the Day Tour are Dawn and Sam Moore on the Tignall Road; Vinnie and Rod Dowling (Anderson home) at Danburg; Virginia Lee King and Skeet Willingham on West Robert Toombs Avenue, Washington; Vivian and Roger Walker (Holly Ridge), Sandtown; Archie and Chrean Brown, Court Street; Carole and Walter Currie (Sutton home) at Danburg.
There will be four homes on the Candlelight Tour. The home of Allan and Sharlene Zima at 206 South Alexander Avenue, Washington (across the street from Laura and Dave Toiburen), is the only one already confirmed. The Zimas are newcomers to Washington-Wilkes and the house is a newcomer to the tour circuit.
Headquarters for the tour will be at the Washington-Wilkes Elementary School on East Street.
The Kiwanis Club will be driving courtesy cars to provide transportation to the various locations.
There is no Dessert Soiree this year. Shops on The Square will be open on Friday evening, March 30, to provide a "Taste of Washington."
The always-popular Woman's Club Seated Luncheon will be available for $10 each with reservations required. The First United Methodist Church will be open for buffet lunch.
The Washington Little Theater Company will be presenting the musical "Gypsy" on Friday and Saturday nights, March 30 and 31, at 8 p.m.; and again on Sunday afternoon at 3 p.m. Debbie McLeod will be the star of the musical which is directed by Sue Davidson. Musical direction will be by Mrs. McLeod, and Cynthia Aultman will be doing the choreography. Reservations are recommended for the performances and may be made by calling 706- 678-9582.
Churches, museums, and historical sites will be open on Friday and Saturday, and also on Sunday. Downtown shops will be open on Sunday from 1 to 5 p.m.
Any tour home may be visited individually by paying $5 at the door.
Cost for the Day Tour (six homes) is $25; Candlelight Tour (four homes), $25; Day and Candlelight package, $45; and the Woman's Club Luncheon, $10. Theater tickets are $10 each; members may use their cards.
Tickets may be ordered by sending checks to Spring Tour of Homes, P.O. Box 661, Washington, GA 30673. Tickets will be mailed upon receipt of payment.
More information can be obtained by calling the Washington-Wilkes Chamber of Commerce at 706-678- 2013.
Home of
Carole and Walter Currie
The home of Carole and Walter Currie in Danburg was built in the late 1800s by Walter Lee Sutton, the grandfather of the current owner, Walter Currie, and has been in the family since that time. At one time the house was part of a much larger Danburg community where there were stores, a cotton gin, a post office, and several churches.
The Victorian farmhouse was originally surrounded by a group of outbuildings including a smokehouse, a separate kitchen house, two houses for domestic employees, a barn, and an outhouse.
A pecan grove, fruit trees and muscadine grape vines and a large garden helped to feed the large Sutton family and provided produce to be canned and preserved for winter on the big wood stove in the kitchen. The flue and chimney for the wood stove are still visible.
The dining room and back porch were added to connect the kitchen to the major portion of the house and a long and wide screened porch across the side of the house in the back provides a summer living room where for decades meals have been served and visitors entertained.
The front porch faces west, overlooking a bucolic pasture, and provides spectacular evening sunsets. The right side of the porch was screened for many years to allow use in the summer months.
In the main section of the house, two rooms on each side open onto a wide center hallway which provides a breezeway to cool the house in summer.
In the mid-1990s, the house was renovated with an eye to providing comfort and conveniences but with respect for the historical era of the house and for the people who lived in it. The major changes came in the kitchen with cabinets and flooring done of antique heart pine from a lumber company in Milledgeville. A bath was added and wall colors were changed but they were done in keeping with the Victorian era of the house.
Most of the Victorian era furnishings are original to the house and there are several original oil paintings by family members, the late Mary Sutton Saggus and her son, the late Charles Saggus.
The rose-hued dining room, centered with an oak table that easily seats 12, is hung with a variety of prints and paintings of camellias that once hung in homes of a number of family members, now deceased.
In past days, the dining room was filled every Sunday noon with family members and perhaps the Baptist preacher from Danburg Baptist Church and his family there for the mid-day meal. The original owner and his wife were the first to be married in the Danburg Baptist Church, in 1886.
Many of the dishes, pieces of handpainted china and decorative items in the house were wedding gifts to Mr. Sutton and his bride, Hattie Lou Wynn.
For years, the house was the home of Miss Nell Sutton, a beloved Wilkes County school teacher whose raincoat, umbrella and gardening hat still hang in the center hallway as a constant reminder of those who have gone before.
The rock wall beside the driveway was built from stones intended for a Danburg bank, which was never built. The dug well in the north yard had a reputation of yielding good water and never going dry. In years past, neighbors would "borrow" water in season when their own wells were dry.
The wisteria vine in the north yard and the pecan trees in the pasture were planted by Mr. Sutton. The adjacent Walton house began its existence unfinished for many years because a promised marriage never occurred.
The brick steps to Mr. Sutton's final store can be seen on the "new store lot" which lies across Floral Hill Road from the Walton house.
Danburg was once an incorporated town and the road now called Euel Saggus Road was named Greene Street. Two stores and the houses that fronted on Greene Street are now gone.
The town of Danburg was named for the Danforth family whose members had come from England to Massachusetts, to Virginia, and then to Georgia. Hattie Lou Wynn was a descendant of the Danforths.
The area was once the western edge of a very old settlement known as Old Petersburg, on the Savannah and Broad Rivers. Old Petersburg was the point of navigation to Augusta and Savannah for the thriving farming and commercial settlement.